The 12th named weather system of the Atlantic season was
about 170 miles (275 kilometers) west-southwest of Cape Race,
Newfoundland, the NHC said in a 5 a.m. Atlantic time website
advisory. High surf and as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of
rain may soak Newfoundland, the center said.

“The center of Leslie is expected to make landfall in the
vicinity of the Burin Peninsula or Placentia Bay,” the Canadian
Weather Center said in an advisory. “Rain bands extend out
ahead of Leslie and are currently giving very heavy rainfall
rates on the order of 25 millimeters per hour.”

Leslie with 70 miles per hour winds is moving north-northeast at 40 mph, the NHC said. Tropical storm-force winds
extend outward as much as 310 miles.

“It’s moving really fast and it may be moving 35 to 40 mph
as it passes through eastern Newfoundland,” said Dan
Kottlowski, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State
College, Pennsylvania. “Their worst weather will be right
around daybreak. It will rain very hard, very quick.”

Hurricane Igor, which raked the area in September 2010,
washing out roads and isolating towns, was blamed for one death.

Marine Atlantic said it was cancelling ferries between Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland, the Associated Press reported.

Korea National Oil Corp.’s 115,000-barrel-a-day North
Atlantic Refinery is at the head of the bay in Come By Chance,
Newfoundland.

Low-Pressure Threat

Kottlowski said Leslie’s fast forward motion will limit the
most severe weather to about two hours and the total impact from
the storm to six to eight hours. “By noontime, it should all be
wrapped up,” he said.

Elsewhere, a low-pressure system midway between Cape Verde
Islands and the Lesser Antilles that’s moving west-northwest at
15 to 20 mph is being given a 90 percent chance of growing into
a tropical depression within two days, the NHC said.

Also in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Michael was about
1,100 miles west of the Azores packing 65 mph winds and
“weakening fast,” the center said. It’s no threat to land.